1/2 game. Hero is sitting immediately to villain's left. Table is playing somewhat tight for a 1/2 game (and somewhat weak/passive) except a couple of spots.

Hero is sitting on $500. Villain has about $750.

Hero and villain are laggiest at table (hero usually plays 2/5 and having a tough time not gambling it up too horribly) -- both raising preflop much more than anyone else. Villain has been hitting some hands and quickly built up his stack. There was a hand where I ended up tank-folding river with top pair good kicker to a preflop raise/bet/bet/bomb line on a very static draw-ish board from villain where I felt like he could easily have been triple barreling, but decided I didn't have enough evidence that he was capable of doing so.

Villain has seen hero play some hands fast, including a hand where we both flopped the nut straight - he slow played, and smooth called a $20 flop bet while I 4x'd it (we got it in OTF and chopped). Villain has no evidence that hero raises post-flop with anything but strong hands. Villain seems like a decent hand-reader, pretty sure he's doing well at these stakes, and it will be hard to get a ton of money in against him when he's behind.

About the slow play... It was mostly for metagame reasons, but I'm still curious about what people think about it given our stack depth.


Here's the hand:

Hero is in CO with JQ. Couple limps to villain who makes it $12. His range is like any pocket pair, suited connectors, big aces, and some hands like 97o. Not sure if he has hands like K5s, but I would think it's a decent possibility. Hero calls. There is one other caller who will act before villain on flop.

Flop ($36): JQ7 (giving hero top two)

Villain bets $20. I think he would c-bet most of his range here as he knows I'm calling rather wide against him preflop. This is an obvious spot to raise, but I decide to slow-play this one. Mostly hoping to catch villain barreling to help out with the metagame. I snap-call throw in the chips.

Turn ($76): 5

Villain bets $40. Flop and turn sizing feels pot-controllish. At this point I think villain has at least an open-ended straight or flush draw, maybe a weak queen (QT or Q9s or maybe Qrag-suited) or a jack, but his sizing doesn't completely eliminate a set/two-pair, which he might be setting up for a river bomb. I think villain plays almost his entire range nearly perfectly against a raise here (folds worse, calls with draws only if he's getting good odds including some implied odds). I snap-call throw in the chips.

River ($156): J

The most beautiful card in the deck. Villain bets $75. My thought is my hand until this point looks like a weak queen, a jack, or a draw. I'm pretty positive at this point his bet is for value, as he's the type to make a very small blocking bet on this board if he had just a pair of queens, and don't think he's often trying to get me off a queen with this sizing. So I'm giving him like 9J, TJ, KJ, AJ, and a lot of flushes - weighted towards the flushes.

Hero has about $350 behind after the $75 (pot-sized raise would be $300 on top). Normally my image is laggy enough to just ship here, but my image isn't currently that bad and I think if I ship villain could find a fold with something as strong as the ace-high flush here.

How much?

200-225 total

Given stack sizes I'm almost always raising the flop to build a pot up...You certainly may have missed a ton of value..
Fast play, my friend

If you raised the flop to say 60 and he called the pot would be 156

You bet 95 on the turn he calls the pot is 346..with 325 behind.

You could shove river for max value or bet like 200...on this great river card.

I don't like a flop raise, he could easily get away here, we have position so I like the line you took, I'm over shipping here and hoping he makes a hero call with a flush, overpair or even a strong Q, if he was weak then he's not going to call a raise anyways so I'm shoving in this spot. Your image as a LAG helps you in this spot.

This is not a good flop to slowplay. You need to raise the flop, part to protect your hand against multiple draws and part for value to get stacks in by the river.

If the table views you as a LAG, you need to especially bet/raise with your big hands. Villains will figure out that you play more passively with big hands and raise to steal with weaker hands. Observant and thinking villains will spot and exploit your weak raises.

If anything, shipping looks weaker. If he has a 1 pair hands, he is b/folding no matter what the raise is imo, especially after 3rd heart hits.

I prefer shove with your image, to get max values from flushes or J Jx sometimes.

Copied from OP, "Villain has seen hero play some hands fast, including a hand where we both flopped the nut straight - he slow played, and smooth called a $20 flop bet while I 4x'd it"... I'm playing this hand slow partly to prove that I have strong hands in my flatting range as I've already proved I have strong hands in my raising range.

I dont mind mixing up your play here on this Flop, not sure if you had done this with a draw previously for V to reference? That is what I am looking for here when I mix up my play .. I dont want it to 'always' be the 'go-away-gii-value' raise as it should be the flush draw some of the time.

I think you want to make it look like you can still fold. With 350 behind if you make it $185 total that would leave 240 behind and could get V to shove with flushes or Jx thinking we are worried about our hand. I can see where shoving is valid as well since we wont have to show our cards or we can possibly get max value. If V only has Jx, he may pay to see our flush for 110 but not 350.

We may never get a call here, but we certainly get less calls at 350 than we do 110-150 IMO. His betting has been 50% PSB the whole way .. could be 77 (and then we really do miss out on value since he probably never shoves).

There is really no wrong way to play it here OTR. I like the slow play every once in awhile and 'perhaps' you hit the money card on River. Folks here know that I hate the 'words' all-in, so that could skew my posts. Play it up a little, no too much, and raise a reasonable amount IMO. GL

Yeah I agree, the pot is just not big enough on the flop to not raise there, and dangerous to boot. The cards came perfectly for you... and u still might have been able to make more money if you raise the flop. If you had a strong read that he was going to 3 barrel with air, then I could see this play... maybe you thought that on the flop... and then decided he had a hand on the turn? But, even so, raising the flop opens the door for him to play back with anything.

:grunch:
I think at this point bigger is better on this river, even if villain is decent most 1/2 players just don't fold flushes so just shove. That said I think not raising turn is criminal since he has lots of draws he will continue with and can just own you on ugly rivers like Kh.

I like my villains to get passive. Slow-playing big hands is one way to scare them from barreling too much. Copied from my OP - "There was a hand where I ended up tank-folding river with top pair good kicker to a preflop raise/bet/bet/bomb line on a very static draw-ish board from villain where I felt like he could easily have been triple barreling, but decided I didn't have enough evidence that he was capable of doing so."

This hand was partly my way of possibly getting a better idea of his bet/bet/bet ranges, partly to slow him down, partly to "mix it up" to confuse him about my ranges, etc.

That being said, from a pure EV standpoint (of this hand only), yeah raising flop or turn is usually best I think.

AP shove river, very unlikely he folds nut flush (less than 20% chance imo)

If you want to do this, I would wait to slowplay on a dry board with top two+. You can then afford to give free cards. Villain will remember you slowplayed, but not the specific board you did it on.

In general, I think trying to play the metagame at $5BB stakes and below wastes energy and money. Your average random low stakes player won't pay enough attention or recall with great clarity the previous actions with you. I think focusing your thoughts on playing the most +EV poker possible maximizes your win rate more than trying a metagame your opponent may or may not understand.

To me the most interesting part of people's posts is the "why"; what's their reasoning/plan?

What was wrong with your metagame that you thought needed help? What benefits did you expect your metagame to receive? What benefits have you actually received? Could you explain in detail.

I'm hoping to get him to play a little bit more fit and fold, cbet less, become passive (check/call), etc. I like that he raises a ton because I can just call him in position and deep. By playing some hands fast early on and this hand slow, I'm hoping to take away a bit of his hand-reading ability and be at a point where he's thinking, "I have no idea wtf this guy has." When I'm playing deep stacked and involved in a lot of pots with a particular player, I think of it as a sparring/mental match. Once villains get to a point of being utterly confused, it becomes a lot easier to own their souls... I play a laggy style that is not advocated here in LLSNL, but as long as I'm watching out for the worst of my leaks (giving nits too much action, calling with marginal/crappy hands OOP, playing marginal hands without enough stack depth, etc), it works very well for me.

And BTW - he did seem visibly defeated after this hand and started to play much more that way too - but that was probably more the river card than my play.

As to raising, there was probably going to be at most 4 bets put in post-flop (flop, turn, river, and a raise). The question is, where does that raise belong? The benefit to doing it early on is I charge draws, the board hasn't gotten too scary to call, and I take control of the betting so that more goes in; the benefit to doing it later on is it's being done when I have more equity in the pot vs his range, it's lower-variance, and it keeps bluffs in. I don't think there really is a clear-cut answer to what the highest EV play is.

I just can't get behind a flat on this wet of a flop with top 2, especially since we are deep. It sounds like villans range can include all sorts of draws setting his price. I like a small raise on the flop just so it's that much easier to get stacks in. We could still keep the meta game which for some reason you seem really concerned about(are you expecting to play this villan often?) and be representing a draw ourselves. I just really don't want to give hands like under pairs and AK a chance at realizing their equity for such a small c bet. What's our plan when the board doesnt come out so perfectly? Are we then just stationing to the river?

Just by raising flop to say 45 or 50 stacks could easily go in by the river. It just doesn't seem worth balancing our range when we should just be going for fat value. We can't expect villan to ever just bet flop flop with the stronger portion of his range so why slow play? Your priority just seems a little off to me.

Ok maybe you're right, but focusing on table dynamics is how I play and even in a session by session basis (i.e., when theres on player history between sessions) it's worked out for me... I'll agree that in general it is better to raise big hands than it is to play them passively. I am really not debating that it is better to raise this flop than not raise this flop, and I very well may be way off in thinking it's done anything to push the dynamic in my favor. But I don't think it's a *huge* loss in EV by not raising, and balancing my ranges a bit can't be hurting me all *that* much against one of the better players at 1/2, can it? Anyway, he wasn't just some horrible fish who's going to always stack off for 250BB with QT (i.e., "just raise to 45 or 50" does not make it easy for stacks to get in), and I really hadn't demonstrated enough aggression/craziness to get him to think QT has even the slightest chance of being good after a raise and subsequent bet.

As to AK realizing its equity... I agree, but only if AK is giving up on the turn and river... But the more that AK barrels, the less I'm concerned about it realizing its equity, and the more I like the value I'm getting in its bets... Villain's range wasn't so strong though - he had almost a random hand after his bet on the flop; it's hard for a random hand to make flushes and straights, much easier for them to bet.

AP, yeah, I'm probably a station to any 1/2 pot sized bet on a flushing river. I'm raising bricks, and occasionally I will accidentaly value-own myself and raise when he hits a better two pair or straight, but I'm relying on my reading abilities to not do that too often.

For all those who say I must raise flop or turn ainec, and especially those who say I am doing this specifically against the drawing part of his range, do you believe the same if I showed up with KQ or AQ in this spot?

No. I would just call and reevaluate on the turn with top pair becaue pot control becomes the priority. Top pair is significantly weaker than top two and can't withstand more action on a textured flop. If you raise and villain reraises, I would happily get stacks in on the flop with top two. I don't want to do that with top pair.

To be clear, while villain and I were both playing laggy, we were also towards the smallball (rather than maniac) part of the lag spectrum. Had I raised flop, and he reraised, then yeah I'm probably going with my hand but no way am I "happily" getting stacks in. If I 4bet shove flop and he calls, his range is so heavily weighted towards exactly 77. (However, I would shove because of random flush draws and bluffs and other odd hands that might show up in his 3bet range)

raise flop or raise turn. ship river

gg if he has 77. There are so many draws he would bet strong too and would basically be pot committed by the third bet. We can't really be afraid of the one realistic hand that crushes us.

I'm fine if you want to slowplay at some point to show him you can call with strong hands. I'm saying do it on a less draw heavy board. This is not the flop to slowplay.

I love PR'ing but not here. It feels like V is going for value. And we can eliminate the option of leverage betting. $350 left, so if you bet $200 or more, it's strong and clear you're not folding. So I think the options are shove or $175. I like $175 here. The sizing indicates strength but if V did go for value he's not folding, and he can see at showdown for your metagame factor. If you shove, you hope V thinks your shove is polar and hero calls but if he's as good as you think he'll see the river shove, especially when the draw hit, as a nutted hand. So I just go for the extra $100.